John Kesler

You used the phrase "at this point" after the post in which I quote the book of Luke, thus my inference that you meant at the time of Luke's gospel.

The Evil One

No, I was referring to Paul calling himself an apostle, whihc you mentioned immediately before. Apologies for the confusion.

Amaleq13

The fact that you have to appeal to texts outside Paul's letters simply reinforces the observation made in the OP and does nothing to address the flaw in your previous statement. That Paul calls Peter an apostle neither requires nor implies that he was originally a follower of the living Jesus.

brian231

That's exactly what I was thinking. All you have are two rival apostles. Paul has no sense of respect for somebody who supposedly knew Jesus and was with him until the end. Well, at least until he denied him according to the gospels. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I'm beginning to think a huge chunk of the gospels are complete fiction. At least much more than I originally thought. I believe there is an actual historical Jesus somewhere under all this mythological and exaggerated nonsense so I'm not ready to consider myself part of the "Jesus never existed" crowd.

I still can't make any of this add up. As far as I can tell, you've got two crazy people running around. Peter saying the risen christ appeared to him first and Paul saying he appeared to him last. I'm guessing both of them are making up these resurrection stories to try to validate their apostle status. Paul also curiously makes no mention of the women who supposedly followed Jesus all the way to the very end. Which leads to the biggest hole in the story. Paul actually says Jesus was buried where the gospels say Jesus' body turns up missing before the women could anoint his body. His body is never actually buried according to the gospels. Paul never mentions any tomb so the tomb is most likely complete fiction. I'm beginning to think the women are complete fiction as well. This is what happens when you have more than one person telling a lie. The stories quickly fall apart after any sort of critical analysis.

Historically speaking, does anyone know what would've REALLY happened to Jesus' body after the crucifixion? Since he was a criminal, I'm guessing they would've either left his corpse to be devoured by animals or just dumped his body in an unmarked grave somewhere. I don't think they would've made any special arrangements over some trouble maker or whatever it was he did to get crucified in the first place.

Doug Shaver

That was the usual procedure, according to every last source I have ever seen. It is one of the few things on this subject about which there is zero dispute.

Apologists swear that although rare, exceptions were made, and I know of no skeptical historian who insists to the contrary, so the only issue seems to be whether we have sufficient evidence to think an exception was in fact made in this instance. Well, the only evidence we have is exactly the same evidence that is adduced to support the resurrection.

John Kesler

To require that Paul explicitly say that the Peter he mentions in Galatians was "a follower of a living Jesus" seems to me to arbitrarily set the bar too high. Paul is attempting to correct errors among Christian converts, not writing an early history of Christianity. I'll bet that if such an expression were in Galatians, some would discount it as "an obvious interpolation."

Amaleq13

Pointing out your error neither implies nor requires such a requirement.

John Kesler

I made an inductive argument:
1) Paul refers to Peter as an apostle.
2) The apostle Peter knew Jesus.
3) Ergo, Paul agrees that Peter knew Jesus.

Just because you, and perhaps the thread starter, conjecture that Paul meant something else by the term "apostle," apparently because there isn't an explicit statement that Peter, by virtue of being one of Jesus' apostles, would have known a "living Jesus," doesn't constitute an "error" on my part. I think it is unreasonable to expect for Paul to state something so rudimentary to those who were already Christian converts, and I see no reason to exclude from consideration non-Pauline texts to determine what Paul apparently took for granted that his letter's original recipients knew. No doubt you will disagree, so the last word is yours my friend.

Amaleq13

The point of the OP is that you have to go outside Paul's letters to make it. Specifically:
There is no "conjecture" involved in my replies since Paul explicitly applies the term to himself. He simply offers no support for your assertion.

I don't know why you are pretending confusion about the nature of your error as I have been quite specific in identifying it. You are simply wrong when you assert that the Paul's use of "apostle" in describing Peter carries any implication of a prior role as disciple.

This "unreasonable" expectation is an irrelevant straw man. What is unreasonable is to force a meaning onto Paul's term that is clearly denied by his actual use of the word.

Setting aside the rather obvious reason that terms used by anonymous authors writing well after Paul cannot be assumed to inform us about Paul's terminology and certainly not in contradiction of his explicit usage, a more immediate (though just as obvious) reason is that the OP focuses specifically on Paul's letters.

I only disagree because your position is so blatantly flawed.

Gamera

Paul claims to have "met" Jesus after he was resurrected, and considered himself an apostle for that reason, though he admits its an odd form of apostleship.

1 Corinthians 15:8 - Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.